HOK wins the protocol wars: Corporate architecture, network infrastructure, and the global city

This paper examines the role of computer networking in the development of corporate architecture in the 1980s, focusing on the firm of Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum (HOK). In 1981, HOK installed one of the first international corporate intranet systems at an architecture firm, called HOKnet. This enabled a shift in emphasis at HOK to service delivery—a transformation that is in line with the developments in corporate practice outlined by Saskia Sassen in her analysis of the global city, an emerging urban paradigm in the 1980s.